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“Cool. Can you tell me how I walk through a graveyard and not wake the grass? I think you’re not talking about staying on the sidewalk.”

“I am not. You must learn your lessons as you will.”

“Right. I figured you’d hit me with some Yoda sort of wise man reply.”

He appeared perplexed. “I do not know this Yoda Wiseman. Is he a master?”

“A Jedi Master, yeah.”

“Ah, then it seems his words would contain wisdom you should place great value in.”

The fact that I was sitting beside a dream pond with happy white catfish who sucked toes while discussing Star Wars with one of my dead forefathers was both cool AF and odd AF.

“He’s a tiny green guy with a staff,” I brilliantly replied, wincing at what a moron this exalted hunter must think of his young ancestor.

He chewed on that for a second before moving past it. Such a wise man. “I am watching you, young Kee, and will offer my guidance when it is needed. I would give you advice you would be wise to heed. You consider using a gift from a god of the crossroads. That is a mistake. Do not let the convenience of his key lead you into a pact of any kind. The Loa God is a chaotic entity who never gives without asking for something in return. Study the words of your ancestors. Commit them to heart. Then you will be able to aid the spirits who need to move across with only your seeing eye to light the path. I shall leave you my own gift. Use it wisely. And leave the key somewhere it will not lure you with its promise of advancement without having earned it.”

I opened my mouth to ask for some clarification when one of the white fish with the long whiskers asked me to get the door. Door? I glanced around. There was no door here. Only fish and flowers and my ancestor handing out wisdom I was too dense to comprehend. Not waking the grass. What did that even mean? Did grass sleep?

The dream popped like a bubble, leaving me sitting up in a motel bed, grasping a paintbrush wet with cinnabar paint. My clean jeans had red paint dots on them. I blinked at this gift in reverence and confusion. What was I supposed to paint? I let the sleepy motes of dream fizzle away just as another knock on the door took place. Tucking the brush under a pillow, I stumbled to the door, opened it, and saw a pudgy guy in a green shirt holding greasy takeout bags and a two-liter bottle of root beer.

“Uhm, Phil, did you order takeout?” I called over my shoulder, the remnants of my dream chat with Kee Huang clouding my head slightly.

“Oh yeah, from the gas station where we ate yesterday! They added a delivery fee to have the owner’s son Eddie bring it out,” Phil shouted from the bathroom.

I smiled. “Eddie?” I asked and got a bored nod. “Great. Let me pay you.” I took the bag, which smelled amazing, and went to find my wallet. Once Eddie was paid and tipped, I closed the door and sat on the bed, legs folded, just as Phil emerged from the shower in nothing but a towel and damp skin. He was the most edible thing in this room, and that counted the fried food in the bag. “Dinner’s here.”

“Oh man, I am starving.” He dropped down beside me, towel hiking up to show off thick thighs with soft golden hair and just a peek at his balls. Phil ripped into the bag of food like a starved hound, shoving a chicken sandwich and fries at me before unwrapping and then attacking one of three fish sandwiches that tumbled from the now-eviscerated bag to the bed. “This is good,” he mumbled around a mouthful of fish.

I took a bite of my chicken and had to agree. It was a tasty, hot patty with loads of mayo. My stomach was incredibly happy to get something into it. We ate quickly, chowing down on deep-fried delicacies from the gas station as if the meal were something from a fancy French restaurant.

When we were down to dipping the remaining fries into a glob of ketchup on a sandwich wrapper, I brought up my dream.

“I just had a weirdly wild dream,” I said, plucking a fry from the remnants on the wrapper. Phil looked at me with curious blue eyes. Such lovely eyes, always so filled with love when they landed on me. “In the dream, I met Kee Huang.” His mouth fell open. “I know, right?”

“Was he cool?” Phil asked, feeding me his fry as if I required yet more trans-fat to relay my dream. I took it with my teeth and made a yummy sound despite being stuffed.

“So fucking cool.” I told him about the entire dream, the pond, the fish, the flowers, and the warning about the key from Papa Legba.

“Hmm, so we shouldn’t use it to help ghosts move to the glory of the great beyond, whatever that is for them,” he whispered around a crunchy fry. “But he’s like a big god to Monique. Why would she help us summon an evil entity?”

“Not sure we can say he’s evil. Just tricksy. Any crossroads god is one to be wary of because they don’t just hand out something without wanting something in return.” I sat back against the headboard to rub my belly. Phil took a glug from the big bottle of soda and passed it over to me while belching loudly. “Impressive,” I commented over the hearty burp. “Anyway, the thing that really stuck out was when he said if I studied, then I could help them over myself. Oh! And he left this with me.”

I reached under the pillow to pull out the paintbrush. Still damp with red paint. The sheet and pillowcase were slick with cinnabar.

“Dude, he left you a paintbrush!” Phil exclaimed as I held it aloft over the sandwich wrappers. Paint dribbled off the fine hairs as if it were freshly dipped. I smiled widely at the gracious gift. “Arch, why did he give you a paintbrush?”

I could hear the confusion in his voice. “To paint with.” Phil hit me with a flat look. “I’m kidding. Well, not really.” I placed the ancient brush on my chicken sandwich wrapper to stare down at it. “I mean, it’s to be used for painting talismans to bind demons and violent gui. The yellow strips are called fuhu, or fu, and are made by painting symbols on the paper that will repel dark yin forces. They can also be placed on doorways to protect the household.”

“Cool,” Phil whispered in awe. “So we paint something like ‘Fuck off, evil ghosts!’ on some paper—”

“Yellow, it should be yellow to represent divine energy,” I slipped in, always thrilled to see him become so engrossed in my family’s culture. Most white guys his age barely cared about their own traditions and old beliefs, so his interest made me love him even more.

“Okay, so yellow divine energy paper with warnings.”

“Thunder script,” I explained as he dipped a finger into the small puddle of cinnabar paint and lifted his finger to study it closely. “It’s a distorted sort of Chinese characters that combine secret names, star constellations, and commands for the spirits.”

“Man, this stuff is cold,” he said as his sight darted from the paint on his finger to me. “Do you know the thunder script?”